


All For Nothing

by lumaflies



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, POV First Person, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23988277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumaflies/pseuds/lumaflies
Summary: In the Black Vault far above.Through its sacrifice Hallownest lasts eternal.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	All For Nothing

What else do I know save for the war that wages within my shell? It is all my vision can behold, a battle fought between such deep darkness and something so cripplingly ablaze. It is my duty to make it everlasting. I am bound in shackles and protected by seals to see that through.

I am failing. The burden my kingdom placed on me is too much. My father thought me something that ascended, something that rose to see the challenge met, but I am not that thing. Perhaps once I was, or at least I pretended to be. I cannot say when I shed what hope was instilled upon me. I just know it is gone now.

I have a mind to think. There is an urge within me to be remembered. I cannot tell if it is my own or the wish of the blazing light that I contain. Do my people recall me? There are no more prayers to this temple, and only some to gaze upon my likeness carved in stone. Am I thanked for what I have done? _Remembered?_ This plague's heart clings to such a word, and as of late, it is the only thought to cross my mind. To question any further is to invite its control over me absolutely.

I have a will to break. It is tested at every moment. I wanted to be everything my father saw in me, but I wasn’t. I still believe I can be, futile a belief it may be. Were I to deny the impurity I am, perhaps it would come to fruition as truth. It hasn't yet. Knowing that, and accepting that, I am truly terrified. This great weight I carry is much too heavy for me to bear any longer. I wasn't fit for it in the first place.

I have a voice to cry suffering. I cannot say if there are ears left to hear my wails, but I will cry. I cannot contain what was my duty to seal away. The light is desperate. It is determined. No matter how hard I might try to suppress it, I possess everything it needs to afflict me. Is my voice even my own anymore? Or are these the cries of the one my father so deeply feared?

At long last, for the first and final time, the light has taken from me every inch of dark. My mind can no longer hold it, let alone my shell. It bubbles up from within the very core of my shell. Pulsing fiercely, it fills out my vision until it breaches the fenestras it was once trapped deep behind. Fervently, it overwhelms me. My shell cracks. My failure is manifest, tangible. Pools of light blister and boil against my head. How violently I squirm in the chains I am wrapped in. They were not meant for me, rather, meant for the one I was meant to house. But now? Now that thing and I are the same. These are my chains now. This is my prison now. I was not Hallownest’s sacrifice. No, I was a sacrifice to the forgotten light.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't help but think of that initial cutscene, as well as all the little details mentioned by various NPCs about THK and the Black Egg Temple, so I wrote this to properly sate those thoughts. I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> The title comes from the Hunter's Journal entry for THK: "[...] The sacrifices [The Pale King] imposed on others... all for nothing."


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